Confined to the Spiritual Outskirts By Orthodox Biblical Christianity, Mysticism Contains Depths Too Many Never Get tEven An Inkling Of

Every now and then an excellent Bible expositor will tabe a little jab at "mysticism," such as in mocking what he considers to be an unwarranted mystical interpretation of a particular biblical text.  Sometimes the expositor is undoubtedly right, if there really is such an interpretation which in some cases I've heard I really don't know, but the impulse to mock the "mystical" does grate on me.  It's an unfortunate word because it covers both good and bad "mystical" experiences, but we're stuck with the word as Tozer seemed to know.  He put together the book "The Christian Book of Mystical Verse" and felt it necessary to use the term although he was at pains to explain that it is nothing more than expressions of biblical truth experienced at a depth most people don't have or even think of pursuing.

I don't want to get into this subject beyond once again pointing it out as a neglected area of Christian experience, an area Tozer says is too often cramped and shriveled by a zealous attendance to the truths of biblical faith.   If you don't seek God beyond the usual level of daily devotions and Bible reading and medication you'll never discover that God can be known in personal experience beyond anything you can imagine.  Just try a few days of intensifying the usual prayer and Bible reading with fasting, with an aim to know god better.  You might be amazed.

 <a href=The Pursuit of God | A.W. Tozer | Free Christian Audiobook ->THE PURSUIT OF GOD by A W Tozer</a>

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Hint:  If you don't know that the Song of Solomon is about the love between God and His saints you just don't get it.

Hitchens vs Dembski Debate

 The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the only  right way to have this debate between believers and atheists is to argue from the Bibl3e.  Philosophy is a lost cause for the Christian point of view.  There is no value in defending theism as a general principle wince it can support antibiblical and therefore antiGod  positions such as evolution.  There is simply no point in this.  Debski tries to do this here and it isn't until the very end when he finally starts to argue from the Bible that he makes any worthwhile points in this debate, as I see it anyway.   

Hitchens gets away with all sorts of things thta should hvae been soundly squashed early on from the Biblical perspetive.  Dembski says he is sticking to the philosophical perspective because he believes that's what the rules of the debate require, meaning that's how you have to argue for God's existence.  But why?  The Biblie gives plenty of evidence for God's existence and I think the Christian debaters make a big mistake not to work out their best arguments from that source.

Hitchens makes arguments against the idea of a loving Creator God based on the evils and destructive elements in this world and the universe itself, and it isn't until the very end that Dembski finally says that this world is not the world God originaloly created but the broken world of death and deisease and destruction and sin that was the conseque3nces of the Fall, the original sin of our ficrfirst parents in eating of thte forbidden rtree.  As Paul says in Roma ns 5, death came through the sin of the one man Adam, and sin and death have reigned in the human race ever since because we are all descended from Not exactly part of the debate problem , Adam.  So all arguments that this world doesn't look like the lovely place created by a loving God is easily answered from the Bible.  It ISN'T that original lovely created place.  And the reason is sin, disobediencde of God.

Hitchens makes a couple of comments I have to answer:   I get so tired of hearing this lie that Israel is occdupying lands that are not theirs.  No, they bought whatever belongs to anyone sle and own it rightly, but the fact is that there were very few people living in that area when the Jews cam e to settle the land.  Mark Twain described it as a barren wilderness.  and the "Palestinians" today are NOT natives of that area, they are a motley collection of Arabs from all over the Middle Easy who cfame to work for Israel cdas it was building up its land and settlements.  They were made refugees by the Arabs that attacks Israel, who warned them to flee before the attack.  They are not Palestinians and never were Palestinians.  

He also informs us that we're only half a chromosome away from chimps and that we are all  covered with hair at some stage in the womb.  Well, I looked up the hair, it's not ALL of us but SOME of us who get this hair coat in the womb and if you think it makes us look like chimp babies you'll be disabused of that notion when you read that it's "fine" and "downy" hair.   And although half a chromosome doesn't seem like much of  a a difference I think we really need to know more about this supposed massive similarity.  In any case the similarity can be accounted for by the similairties in body structure which is what DNA is all about after all, there being no reason whatever to assume genetic relatedness on the basis of phyisocal similarities though this is what the evolutionists are always doing.   Design similarity is enough of an explanation.  W DNA makes the bodies needed by animals and humans to navigate this physical world.  Each animal has it's own particular body plan and ours although similar to chimps is not the same body plan at all the way say all cats have the same body plan or all dogs or all tri.lobites.  The proportions are too different.  

Abnd then he ends with an objection to the authoritarian nature of God.  He wouldn't want to have a father who had authority over him every minute of his life and would never go away.  And he thinks all religion is authoritarian  the way Islam is or Roman Catholicism.  Well I agree that those two religions are totalitarian buty that's because they are pagan religions.   Romani Catholicism killed fifty million true Christians in six hundred years of the Middle Ages.  There is nothing Christian about that.  And Islam prescribes murdering all non Muslimas.  That is nothing at all like true Christianity which was recovered at the Protestant Reformation.    The liberties and rights of individuals in western civilization all come from True Christianity if only through the cultural versions of it.  No,not from rationalism.

As for God being authoritarian, it's hard on us as fleshly human beings because we are at odds with God, but through faith we are a new creation that is in tune with the Creator God so that there is nothing but perfect agreement between our nature and His.  The fleshly unregenerate human being is always at odds with God but salvation is the recovery of our essential alignment with Him so that all our thoughts are as His thoughts and we can enjoy Him forever more as the Westminster catchism tell sus.   

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Sam Harris Attacks Religion" From an Abysmally Ignorant Position

For a few weeks at least, I've been listening to atheist talks and debates against 
religion" and it's pretty depressing both how ignorant the atheists are and how much hatred they bear against believers, believers in any religion but  of course the fact that they hate Christianity is the most depressing thing.   Christianity built western civilization and they have no idea.  They attribute the rights and freedoms so recently won in the history of the world to their own rationalism.  They are abyssmally ignornat.  

TGhis talk by Sam Harris is introduced by a guy who is nearly beside himself with hatred for "religion".

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apparently some years ago holding forth against religion.  I don't know when this was but apparently during the Bush administration.  I gather this atheistic aggresion there is so much of on the internet got started as a restul of the attack on the Wtc on Nine Eleven.  But instead of focusing on Islam they attack all 

religion" and treat Christianity as essentially the same kind of thing as Islam.  This is pernicious ignornance, scary scary evil ignignorance.  

My eyes are worse than usual today so I know this post is already a horrendous mess.  I hope I'll be able to fix it later but I don't know.

All I think I'll answer her is one thing Sam Harris said and maybe do more in a later post.  He is chiding George Bush for referring to our "god give rights" and complains that golly gosh Mr Bush which god are you tlaking about.  Poseidon?  The ignorance here is glaring.  It is our own founding documents, our American documens, specifically the Declaration of independence, that says our rights are God Given.  "We hold these truths to be self evidence, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."  Remember?  Why argue against Bush. when it's right there in our aMAmerican founding documents.  And if you haven't noticed, all the nations of Europe are likewise dedicated in one way or another to the same Creator God.   Not Poseidon but the God of the Bible, the God of Christianity.

No the Restrainer is Not the Holy Spirit and TGhere Is Nothering to Be rfestrained about the Antichrist Before the Tribulation

 Ah well, it seems to bbe my spiritual gift to raise questions about other people's theologies.  Oh well.  An odd one I admitg but it's where I alwayss gravitate.  ANYWAY, this time it's again about Jan Markell's eschatology.  This week's radio show had a guest who gave the usual interpretation of the Restrainer. I'm sorry I didn'g look up the verse first, it's the verse where Paul stells the Thessalonians that the Antichrist won't be reveals until "he who restrains 

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The problem is that this is interpreted as if it said the power or existence or activityh of the Antichrist can't occur until this Restrainer is "out of the way."  But all it says is that this Antichrist won't be REVEALED until then.  And surely it needs to be recognized that Paul is using very cryuptic language to avoid saying exactly who this Restrainer is, but why?  The popular interpretation is that He's the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit in the CHurch, but this makes no sense because there is no reason whatever why Paul would find it necessary ro be so careful about his language if it was the Holy Spirit.  No dire consequences would follow from identifying the Holy Spirit as the Restrainer.

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But dire consequences wouldcertainly follow if the Antichrist was to be a usurper of the role of Caesar, which could certainly be said of thePope in the seventh century which is when the Bishop of Rome assumed that role, and the Restrainer was Caesar himself since Caesar would be threatened by such a claim.  

This is one bit of the Pre Trib Rapture scenario I definitely reject.  I think the Roman Church was rthe Great Apostasy and all this happened in the Weventh century and the Roman Church under the papacy continued to reign throughout the next millennium until the Protestant Reformation.  Certainly we can suppose that the Great Apostasy could resume in the last days just as I would assume that the papapc6y will again be in the ascendant and will no doubt be the seat of the ANtichrist during the Tribulation.  

I mighr as well add here that the Pre Wrath position does make some sense to me, and that was sdiscussed on Jan Markell's radio show troday too.  Nevertheelss that one also has problems, questions and doubts in my mind.  All of the different eschataologies have some problem or another as I see it.

Supposedly the First Horseman of the Apocalypse can't ride until the Church is Raptured, the first horseman being the antichrist, the Church being the possessor of the Holy Spirit.

What is "Our Blessed Hope?"

 I have bcked off the Pre-Tribulation Rapture end times scenario but that doesn'[t mean I'vew arrived anywhere else yet.  I have questions and doubts about all the different eschatologies and in some cases, ull preterism and Amillennialism for instance, I reject them completely.  

ere's another problem I have with the Pre-Tr4ib rapture position:  Jan Markell is always saying that the Rapture is "our blessed hope" according to Titus 2:13, but as I read that passage it's not talking about the Rapture or it may or may not be, it's not all t that definite as she claims it is.   It ways we are waiting for the blessed hope of the "florious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Chirst."  That's the Second Coming.  to attribute that to the Rapture is simply to assume the Pre-Trib Eschatology, but in any eschatology we all anitcipate the blessed hope of Jesus' appearing to take us home to be with Him.  I don't know why Jan is so adamant that there is only that one way of reading it.

If we are to escape the events of the Tribulation then the blessed hope would be the Rapture, band I find that argument convincing, but it's nevertheless true that the tibus passage is talking about the GLORIOUS return of Christ and that's not the Rapture.

Why Do GOod Christians Always Forget the Meaning of the Fall?

 John Lennox is probably the best, though certainly at least one of the best, debates against the atheists on the side of Christianity.  I heard him against Richard Dawkins a while back and here he is in another debate though I don't know who he is debateing this time as I've only heard his talk.  As usual he's excellent.

BUT.  Why is it that so many otherwise good solid orthodox Christians stumble on the Problem of Pain>  Ireally don't get it.  He said that this is the biggest problem he's had to face in his Christian life.  Why?   Surely the Fall explains it all.  The Fall is certainly orthodox theology, why is it so often forgotten in this context?

This world is not the world God created, this is a world destroyed by sin and by judgment for sin brought by God, especially in the worldwide Flood of Noah.  From the moment our first parents disobeyed God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which He had forbidden to them, we hvave been subject to every kind of injury, disease and death, every kind of suffering and pain.  All these things are the death that God said would be the consequence of their disobedience and because we are all the genetic descendants of Adam we inherit the death that he brought into the world.    Jesus has brought us healing for the Fall but it isn't yet a full healing and won't be until He has returned and reclaimed His Creation.

A Blast At Science's Contemptible Misrepresentation of Christianity

 I'm SO tired of hearibng this from the smug "science" people  and stheists who  attack "religion" as a mental aberration.  Richard Dawkins carries on in this way and here's someone else, another scientist, doing the same thing.  I don't know who he is and I don't care.  I heard about half a minute of this video and had to write this post:

Steven Weinberg: All Time Best Arguments Against Religion #1 - YouTube

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PuhLEEZE stop lumping Protestant Christianity with Islam for starters, there is NO similarity between the two "religions>"  None.  Zip, nada, none.    RThere is also very little commonality between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.  Whther they are guilty of this charge orf not I'm not even going to speculate, I'm only concerned to correct the complete misrepresentation of Protestantism.

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This guy says the main conflict between science and "religion" is tin the method of approach to trtuh.  Supposely all "religion" decides questions of truth on the basis of authority, and science does not.  Again I'm not going to consider to what extent this charge may or may not be true of Islam or Roman Catholicism, but it most certainly is false concerning Protestantism.

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The word Dawkins likes is "faith" to stand for the most vilified method of "religion."  Supposedly "religion" applies "faith" every question of every kind.  Yikes.  Again leave aside Islam and ROmanism.  I doubt it's even true of those two false religions but it most certainly is not true of Protestant Christianity, which is TRUE Christianity.  The biblical definition is "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseeen."  THAT's how we use faith.  Fiath is our necessary posture toward GOD and toward the things of God.  We are exhorted over and over again in scripture to believe, believe in what scripture is telling is about GOD, not in anything else.  Believe in Christ, beliecve He is the Messiah, believe in tghe miracles He performed, believe in the accounts of his life and in fact all the accounts of the Bible.  WE ARE NOT ASKED TO APPLY FAITH TO ANY OTHER QUESYIONS.  Certainly not to scientific questions.  And it is so utterly ridiculous and annoying that the could think such a think I'm having trouble sstaying calm as I write this.

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Faith is necessary with things of the spirit that we cannot observe.  We must trust those who have witnessed them and lived them, that's the only way we can know about them.   The miracles were cddone to authenticate the claims of Christ to be Christ.  We weren't there, we have no choice but to believe or disbelieve what tthe writers of the Bible report about them to us.   Jesus was willing to show thomas His wounds to prove to Him empirically that He did indeed die and rise again, but He also said "blessed are those who did not see and yet believewd."  We are to truth trustworthy people.  Thomsa  had refused to believe what the other disiples had told Himj.  He was blessed to get the direct proof, but the majority of believers don't get that kind of proof.  We are relegated to treusting the witnesses, and there are scroes and scrores of switnesses who in my judgment are utterly trustworthy, from the writers of the Bible to the people they write about to people who have believede tghe Bible accounts from that time on.

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WE DO NOT USE FAITH TO DETERMINE THE TRUTHS OF SCFIENCE.  In fact it was biblical treuth that was the original impetus to empirical science and if it had not existed we woudl still be flouding ing around with the old weird "science" of the Early Greeks an Romans and Aristotle

It's no doubt all about the Creation-Evolution debate, which they think is about science but evolution is barely a science at all because being a historical science, about events in the past that can never be replicated or tested, it has to remain noothing but speculation.   And since it contradicts the Bible we reject it both on the basis of our faith in the Bible and on the scientific reasoning creqationists have brought to bear on evolution's claims.    Faith has nothing to do with true science, science that is based on observation, but evolution is not based on observation, it can't be, it's purely invention.